Thats interesting about the RUG, I never would have thought of that! Good to hear that oriental places have good oil, my friends dad has a Japanese steakhouse that I can take oil from here in town while I'm experimenting. I joined fillup4free last night, and wow thats a great website! I'll definitely be using it! Thanks for the offer of fuel, and I do plan on being in CA during my trip, so I might look you up. I'm going to use a two tank setup, do you think I should still clean out the main tank? I probably will anyways, and maybe even replace fuel lines if they are really bad. And hopefully if I get the vehicle early enough I'll know the in and outs of the thing, same with the WVO system. It's good to know you're equipment in all cases, that I know!


I go to a Montessori school, and no it's not a public school, its private. The thing is, is that it's really small. There are only three others in my graduating class! Luckily though, they allow stuff like this to happen, which I think is great. It's all following the philosophy of "alternative education" that Montessori is all about.

Thanks for the offer of WVO, chances are I'll be headed through Atlanta at some point!

I know I sound like a broken record, but really thank you guys for helping me out. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it!

I can only speak of Texas, because I've been in the rendering business for three years and I've learned alot along the way. If you have a contract with a client, and we do. Every drop of OIL he makes belongs to DieselGreen Fuels, even if he doesn't put it into my drum or tank. It belongs to me, once he is done with it. The contracts states that I own every drop of oil he removes. This states that he can't put it into another drum and give it away to someone else. Remember that you can get free oil, if they don't have a legal contract signed by someone. But don't give up hope, you can always find good oil, you just have to talk to the right person, and be nice. Stop in and purchase some lunch, and talk to the chef. People that work in restaurants are great people.

Your going to need to set down with some paper and find out what your budget will allow. Your going to need to purchase the car, title, reg, repairs, tools, greasecar kit and anything else I'm leaving out.

If I was in your shoes I would order a greasecar kit asap and attempt to get the best MB you can afford. Nothing more expensive then a cheap MB. I've been installing greasecar kits and other kits for 5 years and greasecar have great kits for the money. But if it's your first time, you have alot to learn so don't think that you can learn everything over night, it takes time, but it's a great process. Pick up a 300, because they can handle alot of weight, and have lots of space for gear and tools.

Remember that your dealing with a 20 + year old car thats going to need some major repair most likely. So don't go cheap on repairs.

Feel free to check out our website and email me if you have any questions.

__________________
Professional greasecar installer
Austin TX


98 Jetta TDI with grease car kit + veg-therm (totaled)
87 MB 300SDL running on B99 / greasecar kit + 30 fphe
www.austingreaseguys.com

[QUOTE=latitude500;1890521]Every drop of OIL he makes belongs to DieselGreen Fuels, even if he doesn't put it into my drum or tank. It belongs to me, once he is done with it. The contracts states that I own every drop of oil he removes. QUOTE]

So if the restaurant owner accidentally spills a large quantity of oil on the parking lot, or into a nearby stream, and the EPA gets called, then you will get the bill for the cleanup?

__________________
'93 190E/D 2.5 Turbodiesel 5-speed (daily driver)
'87 190D 2.5 Turbo rustbucket - parts car
'84 Dodge Rampage diesel - Land Speed Record Holder
'13 Ram 2500 Diesel
'05 Toyota 4Runner

colin,

are you installing the system yourself? i cant recall and i'm in a bit of a hurry to re-read everything you wrote. if you are not installing your own system, i suggest that you do, especially if you are going on this cross country drive. if you have a leak, you better know from experience where the potential leak points are. installing vs watching your local mechanic or friend do it are two different things.

you mentioned your friend's dad has a japanese steak house. i would pay his dad a very polite visit during the off hours and talk about and find out these important things:

1) what kind of oil does he use? if he runs a good quality restaurant and fries alot of tempura, he will most likely use rice bran oil or pure soybean oil. i get my oil from a (primarily) sushi restaurant that uses rice bran oil. both oils i mentioned have a higher than normal (as compared to canola) wax content that needs to be washed out. this is not from personal knowledge as i have *not* made a single ounce of biodiesel yet, but from my searching/reading on biodiesel.infopop.cc

2) make sure no one puts soy sauce in the oil!!! its the 2nd most common ingredient in any asian restaurant next to oil.

3) make it easy for his staff to put oil in the cubies- build a stand with a lipped floor that his staff can easily put a cubie in. the stand should have a stainless steel funnel with a screen that will catch the bits of food. this is what i did after a few weeks and this makes it easier for his staff to put oil in the cubies. not to mention, the biggest benefit to you is that those water absorbing food particles are NOT in your oil

4) patronize his restaurant: if you dont eat there, eat there from time to time. it builds goodwill and shows your utmost gratitude for his time and cooperation. a very important lesson im sure you will learn on your project and in life, my friend

as i mentioned twice now, biodiesel.infopop.cc is the best place you can get info on anything svo, wvo, and biodiesel related. frybrid.com has a good subforum called "getting the ick out" too. collecting through some type of sucking device, oil type, filtering, and dewatering are topics you should do alot of research on.

bob

That also clears things up a bit. I guess it's great if you have a local client, but bad for people on the road who want to fill up and go. Still, thanks for posting that, it clears a lot up. I checked out your website, and it's very informative! That's quite the business you have, I'm really impressed.

I definitely frequent the restaurant, not just because its my friends' dads', but because they have the BEST sushi in town! My god its amazing! They are a really nice family, I give them my business atleast once a month.

I already have a budget written down for the most part, but I still need to contact my insurance agency as far as insuring the car goes. Remember, I'm an 18-year-old male, so it's not going to be inexpensive in perspective to someone a lot older that me. But yes I do have a rough budget written out, and I'm keeping a journal of my progress so far.

Thats good to hear about the greasecar kit, they seem to be the most inexpensive and complete kit that I've seen. I will definitely go with them if someone like your company reccommends it. Like I said, I've been leaning towards a 300TD as well because of its size and space allowed. It's good to hear that the 300's have what I'm looking for, it'll be worth it in the long run even if it's economy isn't all that great.

Thank you for the input!

Yes I am definitely installing the kit myself! I wouldn't even think of having someone else do it for me, help maybe, but not the whole thing. I really like doing stuff myself because not only is it good to know how everything works, it's also satisfying to see something you put together actually work.

Not sure about what kind of oil he uses. How easy or hard is it to get soy sauce out of oil? Will filtering be enough to remove it? I plan on using this oil for a while here in town to expirement with. Like I said above, frequenting the restaurant won't be a hard thing to do!

Do you have pictures of your cubie stand? I was thinking about just buying a barrell out of my pocket for him if he says it's okay. Still, yes I'd like to make it as easy as possible for his staff. I'll be sure to read those topics on the websites you gave me also, thats pretty much all I've been doing the last few days!

Thanks again guys!

Colin:

You have gotten a lot of really good advice so far. I think maybe I can add to it. I have been running WVO for about five years now. First in a 7.3 Ltr. Powerstroke and more recently in an 82 300SD, and an 85 GMC Jimmy.

First, I think you are wise to go with WVO. In comparison Bio-diesel is hard to make, easy to mess up, and absolutely not suited to a mobile operation. It is for process-oriented dreamers not practical, results oriented, doers. (I’m gonna catch it for that one) BTW, a lot of good things come from process-oriented dreamers.

Next, I would concentrate on lining up “Contributors” of filtered oil. In the beginning of my WVO journey I almost gave up because I was using more filters than the fuel was worth. One leg of the solution to this problem is being picky about your oil and getting the cleanest stuff possible. The other and by far the most important is settling. Time is your best friend and heat is a close second. Applied heat is very tricky. If you apply heat to one spot, side, end, of the container it will set up a convection current that will “stir” the oil and prevent the fine particles from settling out. The best way to heat your oil for settling is the ambient air surrounding it. In California it’s not a problem. Elsewhere a nice warm room for your container works. The back of a station wagon jostling across the country? No way. The movement will keep the particles stirred up. So, we are left with the prospect of trying to get oil that is clean enough right out of the fryer to not use up a filter for every gallon. And this on an hours notice. Good luck. So, I believe your best bet is to line up sources of clean filtered oil ahead of time. I think that would do much more to prove the practicality of WVO fore traveling. I have never thought the systems that are being sold to “suck and go” were practical for raw oil and if anyone has experience with any of these I would like to hear about it (70% of all rapes go unreported), however I think one of these might be just the ticket when accepting supposedly clean filtered oil from uncertain sources. What is acceptable to the other guy may not be to you.

For the same reasons I would recommend using the small tank you are likely to get with your system for the diesel tank and use the larger main tank for WVO. As stated by others be ready to change out several of the small primary filters at the start, as VO seems to loosen 20 years of diesel varnish in a heartbeat.

As for good oil, I don’t know about Florida but Mexican restaurants in California mostly use lard. Not good. We have a considerable Indian (Punjab) population here and the best oil I have ever gotten is from Indian places. One of my specialist MDs is Indian and he says they only use vegetable oil (DUH) and they change it extremely frequently. If the oil has the slightest chance of having been too hot they change it. They consider burnt oil very unhealthy. In my experience, upper end Chinese is next best. Burger joints usually have a lot of beef fat mixed in.

Be sure to have a good biocide along and USE it. I use Raycor brand. I all but ruined the complicated fuel delivery system in the 7.3 by getting a colony of red algi going. You can buy a good 300SD for what it cost me to clean that mess up.

As others have said. Government regulation is the biggest deterrent to WVO at the moment and a lot of that is being driven by the grease companies. Imagine, you have this sweet deal going; you charge people to haul away their grease and then sell it to other people. Then you notice you are loosing clients and find out someone else is hauling the grease away for FREE! Time to get on the phone to your congress critter!!! In California at least, you can’t leaglely sell WVO or Bio-diese for fuel unless you belong to a co-op. So, someone emails me and wants to stop by and fill up on his way to Frisco and I have to give it to him free, which I have, or be a lawbreaker. Now maybe I paid the restaurant for that oil, and I have expenses in electricity to pump and filter it, I have additives in it, but I can’t recoup my cost, which is all I want. As long as it’s just once in a while I’m glad to help out another greaser, but let’s face it, I can’t afford to be standard oil at those rates. It would be helpful to point out that there is a network out there already, and Americans are stepping up to the plate on their own initiative, but the government is fighting them at every turn.

Final, I am going to say something else that is going to make some people mad. Maybe even you. If you think you are going to save the world with WVO, SVO, Bio-diese, or corn squeezins, you got another think coming. If you do the math you find that American farmers could plant fencerow to fencerow in oil and sugar crops and barely make a dent in our energy needs. You can’t grow enough fuel and you can’t eat petroleum. Drill here, Drill now, make the permit process for a nuke plant take one year instead of 20, AND use waist oil and crop waist, not to mention clean coal.


Mike

__________________
82 300SD AKA The Dieter Beater

85 GMC Jimmy AKA #$%((@

Both on WVO

Okay I see what you're saying. So in an effort to not go through filters every time I fill up, I should let the oil settle for a while in natural heating conditions. How long does it take for oil to settle in natural heat? I'm assuming a couple hours, which I may or may not have during the traveling part of my trip. I will definitely look for the best oil I can find during my treck, so hopefully that will solve some of my problem, but should I stockpile some cubies and have them settle when I'm not on the road? I think I'm still going to go with a filtered pump like the One Shot or the greasecar one, because it seems to suit my needs as I can't really have oil settleing in the back of my car going 75mph on the highway like you said. Still, if I can seperate the particles naturally I'll do it.

Quote:

For the same reasons I would recommend using the small tank you are likely to get with your system for the diesel tank and use the larger main tank for WVO. As stated by others be ready to change out several of the small primary filters at the start, as VO seems to loosen 20 years of diesel varnish in a heartbeat.

What exactly is the capacity of a 300D or TD tank? I know my 190E is 14 gallons, but I'm sure that these are more. The greasecar kit has a 15 gallon tank with it, so thats roughly 375 miles at 25mpg which isn't awful, but if the main tank is a lot larger I'll consider it. Is it any harder to switch the two tanks' purpose? For simplicity sake, I'll use the tank given to me, but if it's fairly simple to switch then I'll use the main tank for WVO. If that is the case then I'll try to be as prepared as I can for all the diesel junk clogging my filters!

Quote:

As for good oil, I don’t know about Florida but Mexican restaurants in California mostly use lard. Not good. We have a considerable Indian (Punjab) population here and the best oil I have ever gotten is from Indian places. One of my specialist MDs is Indian and he says they only use vegetable oil (DUH) and they change it extremely frequently. If the oil has the slightest chance of having been too hot they change it. They consider burnt oil very unhealthy. In my experience, upper end Chinese is next best. Burger joints usually have a lot of beef fat mixed in.

Thats good to know about the Indian places, I'll definitely be looking them up when it comes time to set up fuel pickups. So Japanese and Indian have the best oil so far from what I gathered. Same with Chinese, those three will be the first I look at when plotting my route. The burger places surprise me though, but in worse case scenario, will filters be able to remove the fat? I'm not saying "oh if filters can take it out, screw it I'll use whatever oil I can find", I'm just asking so that I know what places to avoid, what places to actually seek out, and what places I can go to in an emergency.

Quote:

Be sure to have a good biocide along and USE it. I use Raycor brand. I all but ruined the complicated fuel delivery system in the 7.3 by getting a colony of red algi going. You can buy a good 300SD for what it cost me to clean that mess up.

Thats the first I've heard of this, but I will definitely put it down on my list of things I need. I had been wondering if there was a way to keep the lines clean, but I didn't know that they could get that damaged! Thanks for pointing that out.

Quote:

As others have said. Government regulation is the biggest deterrent to WVO at the moment and a lot of that is being driven by the grease companies. Imagine, you have this sweet deal going; you charge people to haul away their grease and then sell it to other people. Then you notice you are loosing clients and find out someone else is hauling the grease away for FREE! Time to get on the phone to your congress critter!!! In California at least, you can’t leaglely sell WVO or Bio-diese for fuel unless you belong to a co-op. So, someone emails me and wants to stop by and fill up on his way to Frisco and I have to give it to him free, which I have, or be a lawbreaker. Now maybe I paid the restaurant for that oil, and I have expenses in electricity to pump and filter it, I have additives in it, but I can’t recoup my cost, which is all I want. As long as it’s just once in a while I’m glad to help out another greaser, but let’s face it, I can’t afford to be standard oil at those rates. It would be helpful to point out that there is a network out there already, and Americans are stepping up to the plate on their own initiative, but the government is fighting them at every turn.

Yeah I can definitely see the problem here with the legality issues, which really sucks to be honest. I'm not trying to "get around" the law or do things illegally by any means, I wouldn't do anything to jepordize my project like that. I don't want to sell anything or buy WVO or Biodiesel from anybody (sorry guys!) so I guess it doesn't really apply to me personally, but I can see where the government gets its motive to stop VO sellers. I want to do this as correctly and legally as possible, and will take every measure to do so.

Quote:

Final, I am going to say something else that is going to make some people mad. Maybe even you. If you think you are going to save the world with WVO, SVO, Bio-diese, or corn squeezins, you got another think coming. If you do the math you find that American farmers could plant fencerow to fencerow in oil and sugar crops and barely make a dent in our energy needs. You can’t grow enough fuel and you can’t eat petroleum. Drill here, Drill now, make the permit process for a nuke plant take one year instead of 20, AND use waist oil and crop waist, not to mention clean coal.

I'm not out to change the world, nor am I out to make a big name for myself. I agree that drilling here and now is an answer to our oil problem, but the future depends needs more renewable energy sources. Even though nuclear is dangerous and not renewable, it is FAR more economical than coal and fossil fuel power plants we have now. My goal is just to put it out there that if we try these other types of energy sources, give them a shot, that it can possibly hold positive results like Biofuels have had, and that they do really work. Like I said, I still need to get my message pinpointed into one sentence, but it'll be something like that.


Thanks for the comments and advice, I need as many as I can get!

That is straight out backwards. BioDiesel was designed for mobile engines!

A.K.A, lazy.

LOL! So its no longer the OIL companies stopping the alternative fuel production, its the GREASE companies! Looks like people will accuse me of working for Big Grease instead of Big Oil.

That is when you use your buisness skills and make a counter offer to stay competitive.

Nope, the public is being lazy and not trying to change the government. They choose to be lawbreakers because its the easier way.

Finally, something truly 100% true!

Hi:

__________________
82 300SD AKA The Dieter Beater

85 GMC Jimmy AKA #$%((@

Both on WVO

Dear Curmudgeon:

But I misspelled it.

__________________
82 300SD AKA The Dieter Beater

85 GMC Jimmy AKA #$%((@

Both on WVO

about naturally settling..

I had a 1 gallon sample from a restaurant that had some bits of burnt fries and stuff in it as well as sold fats. After a month stuff was still settling to the bottom. (I would drain as much of the good stuff off the top and then let that settle and so on and so on)

Nope. Modern injection systems are far too finely made and precise in operation to allow the use is SVO off the factor floor. It would cost far more than $500 to design an entirely new injection system to handle the viscosity and make the engine pass emissions on a non-standardized fuel.

People keep saying that as if it were true. The diesel engine was originally designed to burn coal dust, peanut oil came later.

How about placing a pad heater under the bottom to raise the temperature so it takes less time to settle through the viscous oil?

I have a Greasecar system. If you end up going that way, I would get a hold of Fattywagons and get some injector line heaters as well...I just did that, and it gives me a much more secure feeling that I am getting properly heated oil to the injectors.

__________________
My Primary Driver - '85 300CD - 4-speed conversion, 2.47 rear, lowered, euro headlights, rebuilding (not restoring so much)

Wife's - '08 Saab Sportcombi Aero

Riding a '03 Yamaha Warrior

Its the injection pump you need to worry about, not the injectors.

My $0.02:

Get a good 300TD. Get the greasecar kit - too many potential problems can come up with the homebrew, and you want this to be as reliable as possible. Oh, and don't cheap out - make sure you run metal fuel lines. You want no more than 12" of rubber line total if you can avoid it.

Consider swapping in a manual transmission (lower drivetrain losses) and consider upgrading the differential to a lower ratio (I believe the 300TD has the 2.88 gearing, so grab the diff from a gas V8 of equivalent age. I know swapping my 240D diff for a 380SEL unit took me from a gearing of 3.69 to 2.47, and it has paid off hugely). Use a big supplemental tank, like from a diesel pickup (maybe something with a 100 gallon capacity?). If you get one with the toolbox top, you can even (carefully) make a slick capture and filtration setup integrated into your fuel tank. A sufficiently large tank should enable you to increase your range and (hopefully) bypass alot of the mucky-mucky of refueling your car every little bit.

Before everyone yells at me for telling you to overload your car, you should look at what the cargo capacity is! (And bear it in mind in designing your system!) When figuring what your tank size should be, remember that WVO is around 7.2-7.5 lbs/gallon, and don't forget to account for what your tank and gear will weigh. My car fully fueled carries about 35 gallons, and I've gone on trips with both tanks full, 3 adults and our gear, no problems.

One last point: you should be able to bolt up the 4-speed from a 240D without issue. That said, with the taller differential and a fully loaded car, starting on hills is 'fun'. You may want to investigate the possibility of the 5-speed manual found in the 190D 3.0L cars from the late 80's and early 90's. I have reason to believe these have the same bellhousing bolt pattern. Also remember that if you change your differential, your speedometer will lie!

Best of luck to you!